Harbor

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  I’m alive.

  He swam towards the shore and after a couple of metres he was able to walk in the shallows, crouching down behind the boats. He carried on up on to the rocks, and the rest of the story matched the official version.

  This was the first in a series of things he had allowed to pass over the years. A number of people had disappeared under dubious circumstances, he had found Spiritus, and Maja had vanished into thin air. He had allowed himself to be assured that everything was as it should be, because it was easier that way and because the alternative was impossible to put into words. It was just ridiculous to think there was some kind of silent conspiracy among those who lived on Domarö all the year round. And yet he had begun to wonder if that wasn’t precisely the situation.

  Simon pulled his old leather jacket on over his overalls and went out. There was a thread, and now he was going to tug at it to try and provoke a reaction. The thread was called Holger. The discovery of Sigrid’s body had obviously shaken him, because there had been no sign of him, so perhaps he was off balance and susceptible to a chat.

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and the sound of an axe chopping wood echoed across the inlet. Simon nodded to himself. Anders was obviously hard at work, and that was a good thing. The dull sound of a lump of wood being repeatedly thumped against the chopping block suggested that he had made a start on the dry fir.

  Well, that will give him plenty to do.

  The village was deserted in the soft afternoon light. The school children had gone home, and were probably having something to eat. Simon looked down towards the jetty and remembered that day long ago when he had stepped ashore for the first time. Astonishingly little had changed. The wooden boats around the jetty had become fibreglass boats, and some kind of transformer station stood there humming quietly at the end of the jetty, but otherwise everything looked just the same as it had done then.

  The waiting room had been torn down and rebuilt. The boathouses were listed as cultural heritage these days, and thus remained unchanged, the diesel tank was still there spoiling the track up to the village, and the sea buckthorn perhaps looked a little better, but was still in exactly the same place. These things had seen him step ashore, had seen him almost drown, and now they saw him walking through the deserted village kicking pebbles along in front of him as he went.

  You know more than me. A lot more.

  He was so absorbed by his own feet that he didn’t notice there was a light on in the mission house until he was virtually on top of it. It was only in exceptional cases that the mission house was used at any time other than a Saturday morning, when a small flock of the older residents gathered to drink coffee and sing hymns to the accompaniment of a treadle organ.

  The curtains were closed and the chandelier on the ceiling, the pride and joy of the mission house, was visible only as a pale blotch. Simon went up to the window and listened. He could hear voices, but not what was being said. He thought for a moment, then went around the side and opened the door.

  The village council. I’m part of this village as well.

  The sight that met his eyes as he walked in was in no way remarkable. A dozen individuals aged between sixty and eighty were sitting on chairs in a loose huddle beneath the votive nave. He knew or recognised every one of them. There was Elof Lundberg and his brother Johan. There was Margareta Bergwall and Karl-Erik something-or-other from the south of the village. There was Holger. And Anna-Greta. Among others.

  The conversation stopped the second he opened the door. Every face turned towards him. They looked neither caught out nor embarrassed, but their expressions made it very clear that his intrusion was not welcome. He looked at Anna-Greta, and saw something different in her face. A hint of pain. Or a prayer.

  Go away. Please.

  Simon pretended not to notice anything; he just walked in and said cheerfully, ‘So what are you all cooking up, then?’

  Glances were exchanged, and the unspoken agreement seemed to be that Anna-Greta should be the one to respond. When a few uncomfortable seconds had passed without her saying a word, Johan Lundberg said, ‘A Stockholmer wants to buy the mission house.’

  Simon nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. And what are you thinking of doing?’

  ‘We’re wondering whether to sell.’

  ‘Who is this Stockholmer? What’s his name?’

  When no reply was forthcoming, Simon went over to the group, pulled up a chair and sat down.

  ‘Carry on. I think this is interesting as well.’

  The silence was suffocating. A faint clicking sound came from the old wooden walls, and a petal drifted down from the wilting flowers on the altar. Anna-Greta scowled at him and said, ‘Simon. You can’t be here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because…you just can’t. Can’t you accept that?’

  ‘No.’

  Karl-Erik stood up. He was the most well-preserved of those present, and a pair of still muscular arms protruded from his rolled-up shirt sleeves. ‘Well, that’s the way it is,’ he said, ‘and if you’re not prepared to leave of your own free will, then I’ll just have to carry you out.’

  Simon stood up as well. He hadn’t much to offer in comparison to Karl-Erik, but he looked him in the eye anyway and said, ‘You’re welcome to try.’

  Karl-Erik raised his bushy eyebrows and took a step forward. ‘If that’s the way you want it…’ Without any definite purpose in mind, Simon closed his hand around the matchbox in his pocket. Karl-Erik angrily shoved a couple of chairs out of his way, working himself into a rage.

  Anna-Greta shouted ‘Karl-Erik!’ but it was no longer possible to stop him. He had a glint in his eye, and a task to see through. He stepped up to Simon and grabbed hold of his jacket with both hands. Simon lost his footing and hit Karl-Erik’s chest with his head, but he didn’t let go of the matchbox.

  With his forehead pressed against his opponent’s ribs, he asked the water in Karl-Erik’s blood, the water in his tissues, to hurl itself upwards. The strength in Simon’s request was not as great as when he had held Spiritus in his bare hand, but it was more than enough. Karl-Erik staggered, let go of Simon’s jacket and put his hands up to his head. He reeled backwards a couple of steps, then leaned forward and threw up all over the antique rug.

  Simon let go of the matchbox and folded his arms across his chest once more. ‘Anyone else?’

  Karl-Erik coughed and retched, threw a venomous look at Simon and retched a little more, then wiped his mouth and hissed, ‘What the fuck do you…’

  Simon sat down on his chair and said, ‘I want to know what you’re discussing.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘It’s the sea, isn’t it? What’s happening to the sea.’

  Elof Lundberg rubbed a hand over his bald head, which looked indecently naked without the obligatory cap, and asked, ‘How much do you know?’

  A couple of the others looked angrily at Elof, since his question implied an admission that there was something to know. Simon shook his head. ‘Not much. But enough to know there’s something wrong.’

  Karl-Erik had pulled himself together and was on his way back to his seat. As he passed Simon he spat, ‘And what exactly are you intending to do about it?’

  Simon unzipped his jacket to indicate that he intended to stay. He looked at the group, which was tightly closed around an invisible centre, making no move to invite him into the circle. Anna-Greta wouldn’t look in his direction, which he found hurtful. Despite his bad feeling, he hadn’t wanted to believe it would be like this.

  What are they so afraid of?

  It couldn’t be anything else. They sat there like some little sect, fearfully protecting their secret and their belief, terrified of any intrusion. What Simon couldn’t understand was that Anna-Greta was part of this. If there was ever a person he had met in his life who didn’t seem to be afraid of anything, it was her. But here she sat now, her eyes darting everywhere, focusing anywhere but on him.

  ‘I’m not intending to d
o anything,’ said Simon. ‘What could I do? But I want to know.’ He raised his voice. ‘Holger!’

  Holger, who had been deep in thought, jumped and looked up. Simon asked, ‘What really happened to Sigrid?’

  Perhaps Holger hadn’t really picked up on any of the previous aggression towards Simon, because he answered sourly, as if Simon already knew, ‘That’s exactly what we’re talking about.’

  Simon was about to say something ironic about the fact that he thought they were talking about the mission house, but if he did that they could carry on attacking him and bickering until the cows came home, so instead he folded his arms and simply said, ‘I’m not going anywhere. It’s up to you how you deal with that.’

  At last Anna-Greta was looking at him. Her gaze was direct and impossible to interpret. There was no love in it. No loathing or any other emotion either. She was a function looking at another function and trying to assess it. She looked at him for a long time, and Simon looked back. The sea lay between them. In the end she clamped her lips together, nodded briefly and said, ‘Would you be kind enough to go out for a couple of minutes, at least? So that we can come to a decision.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you.’

  Simon considered the matter and decided this was a reasonable request. With exaggerated care he zipped up his jacket and went out. Just before the door closed he heard Karl-Erik say, ‘Bloody summer visitors, they think…’ then the door closed on the rest of his comment.

  Simon walked a few metres away from the mission house and stood there contemplating the autumn. The thicket of dog roses next to the mission house wall was covered in rosehips, red and alive like insects. All the leaves were gradually turning yellow, and the rust-coloured roof tiles shone slightly with dampness. Odd chips of gravel sparkled on the path when a shaft of sunlight penetrated through the foliage.

  The loveliest place on earth.

  It wasn’t the first time he had thought that. Particularly in the autumn, he had often been brought to a standstill in admiration of the beauty of Domarö. How could this be a depopulated community, why didn’t everyone want to live here?

  He walked a little way along the track, drinking in more of the autumn’s miracles: the clear water in the rock pools, the wet tree trunks, the moss saturated with green dampness. The white-painted tower of the alarm bell, stretching up towards the sky. He wasn’t thinking about anything other than what was before his eyes. He knew he could think about something else, about the change that was perhaps about to take place, but he refused. Maybe he was saying a kind of goodbye.

  He had been ambling about in this way for perhaps five minutes when the mission house door opened. Anna-Greta came out and waved him over. He couldn’t tell from her face what the decision was, and she turned away before he reached her.

  When Simon walked back into the warmth he had no need to ask. An extra chair had been drawn into the circle, between Johan Lundberg and Märta Karlsson, who used to run the shop before her son took over. Simon didn’t know if it was deliberate, but he had been placed opposite Anna-Greta.

  He took off his jacket, hung it over the back of the chair and sat down with his elbows resting on his knees. Karl-Erik was two seats away to the left, sitting as if he were holding a barrel of nitro-glycerine on his lap. If he moved or slackened his grip, he would explode.

  Anna-Greta looked around the group and licked her lips. She had obviously been nominated as chair. Or perhaps she always had taken that role.

  ‘First of all,’ she said, ‘I want you to tell us how much you know. And how you know.’

  Simon shook his head. ‘So that you can work out what to tell me? No. It seems as if you’ve decided…’ Simon glanced briefly at Karl-Erik. ‘…that I’m allowed to know. So tell me.’

  Anna-Greta looked at him in that way again. But there was a difference. It took Simon a moment to work out what it was. Then he realised: she was embarrassed. All this was her fault, because she was the one who was Simon’s partner. He was her responsibility.

  Elof Lundberg slapped his hands down on his knees and said, ‘We can’t sit here all day. Tell him. Start with Gåvasten.’

  So she did.

  Gåvasten

  It was a hazardous business, being a fisherman in the olden days, before meteorology. There were no forecasts to consult, nothing to tell you how much of its better nature the sea was planning to show; or whether it was intending to whip itself into winds that would smash both people and vessels to pieces.

  And if things went very badly, if the fragile boats that had set out to gather in the nets ran into a strong wind, what chance was there for the crew to communicate the fact that they were in distress? The most they could hope for was that God would hear their cries, and his readiness to help was somewhat capricious.

  But they did their best. When it seemed as if all hope had gone, when the crew were lined up along the gunwale to stop the waves crashing over the deck, they would sometimes make lists of the promised collections that would be taken up when they came ashore, if they ever came ashore. Sometimes God allowed himself to be persuaded, and the lists would be read out in church the following Sunday and the collection would be taken.

  But it wasn’t a reliable method. Many notes detailing extensive promises of contributions to the glory of God sank to the bottom with those who had made them. Incomprehensible, one might think. But Our Lord is no businessman.

  Yes, life as a herring fisherman was a risky business in the olden days, but sometimes it could be very rewarding. Entire families moved to the outer islands during the summer, spending a few months laying, gathering in and checking their nets. The herring were salted in barrels and stored away, and later in the autumn they would be transported home and sold.

  Sweden is built on salt herring. What did they use to feed the army, what did they give to the foreigners who came to build churches, and to other workers? Herring, that’s what! And what kept those who lived on the coast alive during the dark winter months?

  Exactly. Herring.

  People were so afraid of upsetting this valuable fish that the official document of the harbour guild states, ‘Any person who shows disrespect towards any fish, and calls it by an incorrect name in a spirit of contempt will pay a fine of 6 marks’.

  The silver of the sea. It had to be brought up, and that involved risk. But people looked for opportunities to stack the deck, so to speak. To reduce the risks and be able to feel secure.

  Anna-Greta’s story took place many hundreds of years ago. The area that today comprises Nåten was still partly under water. Domarö with its surrounding archipelago made up the outermost islands. This was also the site of the rock that used to be called Gåfwasten even further back in time. This was the place where people were in the habit of leaving gifts for the sea, after, for example, a successful trip across to Åland and back.

  Exactly how the next phase began is shrouded in darkness. It is possible that someone might have got stranded on Gåvasten and been swept away into the waves, or simply disappeared. At any rate, people noticed that after this event the catches improved significantly, and the sea remained obliging all summer long.

  It made people think.

  The following summer, an insolent young man who had no time for superstitious nonsense declared that he was willing to be left on Gåvasten. He was provided with sufficient food and drink for a week, and if nothing had happened during that time, someone would come and rescue him.

  They left the young man on the bare rock, rowed back to the fishing grounds a nautical mile or so away, and carried on laying their nets as if nothing had happened. The very next day they had the record catch of the summer, and the herring continued to pour into their nets in the days that followed.

  When they returned to Gåvasten after a week, the young man was gone. They inspected the leftover food and drink, and found that it was virtually untouched. He couldn’t have spent many hours on Gåvasten before the sea took its tribute, and g
ave them herring in return.

  And so the situation was clear. The problem was how to proceed in the future.

  The catches were enormous that summer, and during the October market they were able to sell more than twice as much fish as in previous years. Come the winter, discussions were held, and this was the decision they made: since no one was willing to offer themselves as a gift to the sea, they would simply vote. Women and children were not allowed to participate, but nor were they at risk of being sacrificed. This was a matter for the men.

  Now, it would be nice to be able to tell of the heroic resignation with which the chosen person received the verdict. Unfortunately this was not the case. The voting was carried out with no mercy, and simply turned into a vote as to who was least popular in the fishing community. It was usually some angry and unreasonable individual who was selected, and the dubious honour didn’t make him any more amenable.

  The victim would be hauled off to Gåvasten with something of a violent struggle, then his companions would row away as fast as they could with his curses echoing across the bay. Everybody kept their eyes down.

  It came to be common practice simply to bind and fetter the victim before depositing him on Gåvasten. As the years passed, the custom was rationalised even further. No one really wanted to set foot on Gåvasten, and it turned out it was enough to chain up the victim and drop him in the sea. The desired effect was still achieved. The herring poured in, and the sea did not seek any further sacrifices.

  By this stage people had settled permanently on Domarö. The pact with the sea made the population as rich as it is possible to be from fishing, and the houses were in no way inferior to those on the mainland. And yet it was not a happy island.

  The annual sacrifice took its toll on the souls of the people. It wasn’t many years before they stopped excluding women and children from the sacrificial duty. Since it was still only the men who voted, it was, shamefully, the women and children who ran the greatest risk of being selected.